The detective rubbed his neck gingerly, turned and walked out of the room. Irene was sitting on the edge of the bed, leaning forward with her arms folded tightly over her stomach.
“I don’t think he’ll bother you again,” Mickey said. “If he does, call the hotel desk.”
“All right, Joe,” she said dully.
He waited a short time, but she said nothing more and he went out. He picked up his suitcase and went downstairs. His car was in the hotel garage and he hung around there while they filled the tank and checked it out for him. Then he put his suitcase in the tonneau and drove out to the street.
He drove about a block and a half, found a place to park the car, locked it and walked back to the hotel. From a doorway across the street he could watch the coffee shop and main entrance. He waited till after two in the afternoon, when finally Irene went into the coffee shop. She ordered a big meal and dawdled over it until nearly three. He waited doggedly, moving about frequently, stamping his feet against the cold.
She came out by the main entrance, looked in one direction, then the other, finally turned toward the principal shopping street to her left. Mickey followed on the other side of the street. She wandered the streets for about an hour, window-shopping. She turned into one store and came out a few minutes later with a small package. After a while she went into a cafe and had a cup of coffee and some ice cream. At four-thirty she turned into a hotel bar called The Pony Ring. Mickey went to the lobby and found a spot from which he could look into the dimly lighted cocktail lounge.
Irene sat alone at the thinly populated bar, nursing a long drink. From time to time the bartender would pause opposite her and they would talk, sometimes with laughter. A customer moved from some distance to sit beside her and bought a round of drinks. Pretty soon Irene was shaking her head firmly, persistently, and the man finished his drink and went out. Mickey watched while three others approached and tried to pick her up. She turned them all down.
He was deeply depressed. His hunch hadn’t proved out. He had come to believe in his own mind what he had told her earlier—that Lou Roberts was no longer in town. There was nothing to do but start again, try to pick up the trail. Irene had outlived her usefulness.
It had begun to snow and he turned his collar up for the walk back to his car. It snowed softly, in large, wet drops. It muffled the city sounds, created a pseudo-silent world of wet black pavements. When he reached the car, its small, curving top bore a fluffy white cap, like frosting on a cake. He got in and started it and drove slowly over the darkening streets to Fenelon’s tavern.
* * * *
Mr. Fenelon was glad to see him. It was a Saturday and he looked forward to a good night. The first half of the evening met his expectations nicely. The place began filling up early and by nine o’clock there wasn’t a vacant seat at the bar and most of the tables were occupied. Still, for Mickey it wasn’t a backbreaking grind. It occupied his mind and kept him from brooding. The cocktail waitress was co-operative and uncomplaining. By the jingle of her pockets every time she approached the bar, Mickey decided she was making a good thing of it.
Fenelon came back from the other place at nine-thirty and gave him a fifteen-minute break. He had to leave again at ten, by which time the crowd had leveled off. By eleven it had begun to thin out. The standees around the bar disappeared gradually, and by eleven-thirty there were vacant stools and the volume of sound had diminished. The booths and tables held fairly steady and when Fenelon returned at midnight, he was well pleased.
In the next half hour the tables began to empty, the cocktail waitress took a break and Fenelon decided to check the cash and get back to his other spot. Mickey had a small cluster at one end of the bar and not much else to worry about. Fenelon was seated at the cash register and Mickey was washing glasses when the front door opened and Irene came in.
He held his breath, wary of the condition she might be in. She was wearing the new coat and there was a damp film of melting snow on her shoulders and collar. She stood near the door, looking around nearsightedly until she spotted Mickey, then shook her coat back and moved toward the bar. He breathed a sigh of relief at her steady carriage.
She sat down and laid her purse and gloves on the bar, shook out her hair and ran her fingers through it.
“Hi, Joe,” she said.
“Hello,” he said.
Silence had fallen at the cash register and Mickey saw that Fenelon was gazing at her steadily with a firm, set expression. Mickey nodded casually.
“It’s all right,” he said. “It’s my wife.”
Mr. Fenelon’s face smiled in relief.
“Didn’t know you were married, Joe.”
He came down from the register and beamed at her across the bar.
“Irene,” Mickey said, “this is Mr. Fenelon, the boss.”
“Glad to meet you, Mrs. Marine,” Fenelon said heartily. “I was just thinking what a good thing it’s been for me to have your husband working here. That’s a good man you’ve got.”
Irene looked a little startled.
“I guess he’s all right,” she said. “You shouldn’t tell him right to his face, though. He might get stuck up.”
Fenelon laughed.
“I’ll watch that,” he said. “Make yourself at home, Mrs. Marine.”
He returned to the register. Irene took out a cigarette and Mickey lit it for her. They were midway along the bar and had it pretty much to themselves.
“Well,” she said quietly, “you must be a pretty good bartender, huh? Make me something.”
“What’ll you have?” he asked.
“Let’s see—I think I’ll have a champagne cocktail with a needle of cognac, you know—”
“Come on,” he said. “How do you want the whisky?”
“Raw,” she said. “It’s cold outside.”
He poured her a shot and set it down, along with a glass of water. She sat over it, gazing moodily into the back-bar mirror. One by one the customers went out, calling, “So long,” or “Good night, Joe.” Fenelon completed his checking, stuffed into a moneybag all the cash except a small amount of change and closed the register.
“Good night, Joe, Mrs. Marine,” he called.
Irene waved her cigarette at him.
“Good night,” Mickey said.
A few minutes later the cocktail waitress came in from the back and looked the place over. She was looking Irene over when Mickey said, “I can handle it, if you want to take off.”
“I guess so, Joe. Thanks.”
She went away. One couple remained in a booth near the door. A man at the bar stolidly finished a lonely bottle of beer, got up and went out. Irene leaned on both arms on the bar, flicked cigarette ashes into the empty shot glass and inhaled, squinting as the smoke curled upward about her face.
“I just dropped by,” she said, “to tell you—I found out where Lou Roberts is.”
CHAPTER 9
Mickey’s hands shook as he went on cleaning up. His throat was dry and stiff. For a few minutes the room to which he had become accustomed went strange around him. His heartbeat had stepped up sharply.
He wasn’t prepared for such a violent reaction. He felt like a man who had forgotten when he first boarded the merry-go-round, only to be brought up short when it stopped and there was the brass ring, dangling within easy reach.
Irene pushed her shot glass across the bar and he filled it for her, slopping over a little and cursing under his breath. She watched him with quiet curiosity. To escape it, he went out into the room and made a tour of the booths and tables to make sure they were clean. He paused at the booth near the door to announce last call for drinks. It was a young couple, and the girl looked up at him vaguely. Her escort said hurriedly they didn’t want anything more.
By the time he got back to the bar he had regained some control. The realization had struck him that Irene might tell him anything, if only to hang onto her meal ticket another day, a week, a few hours.
He washed the few glass
es he had picked up and put them away. He watched impatiently by way of the mirror, waiting for the young couple to leave so he wouldn’t have to put them out. A minute and a half before the deadline, they obliged. He went to the front door, locked it and switched off the outside lighting. When he turned back to the bar, Irene had swung around on her stool and was sitting with crossed legs, the upper one swinging slowly back and forth.
“Don’t you want to know where he is?” she said.
“Sure, if you want to tell me.”
“That was our bargain, wasn’t it?”
“I guess it was,” he said.
“You better make sure, Joe, because I decided I don’t want to get stuck in this town.”
“I’m sure.”
“Well, he’s living in a little town sort of up in the mountains—not too far, about fifty or sixty miles.”
“What’s the name of the town?”
She dropped her cigarette on the floor, wriggled down off the stool to step on it, then wriggled her way back onto the seat.
“It’s not exactly a town, I guess. It’s like a ghost town. Nobody lives up there in the winter, except there’s this hotel. It’s a place called Laurel Flats. They had a gold rush there once.”
He started away toward the back room.
“Where you going?” Irene said.
“To get my coat,” he said.
In the rear service area he hung up the white jacket, got into his own and his hat and overcoat. He checked the lock on the back door, turned down the thermostat and went back out front.
“How about one for the road?” Irene said.
“It’s after hours,” he said.
“What? Who in hell would know the difference?”
“Mrs. Fenelon,” he said. “Let’s go.”
She got down, grumbling, and joined him at the door. He turned off the rest of the lights and checked the bolt on the door. His car was parked on a side street and they walked over there and got into it. The snow had stopped, it was colder and it took him a while to get it started. Irene looked around once at his suitcase in the back seat, but said nothing.
“What would Lou Roberts be doing up in the mountains all by himself?” Mickey said.
“Well, he’s not exactly all by himself. See, this hotel is owned by some woman—”
“Oh.”
“And that’s her home, so she stays up there all the time.”
He got the car started, let it warm up for a while, then drove slowly out from the curb and headed downtown.
“How long have you known this?” he asked.
Irene shrugged. “What’s the difference? I’m telling you now.”
“But why would you hold out on me?”
“You held out on me!” she said defiantly.
After a minute he said, “Yeah, I guess you could call it that.”
“But I changed my mind,” she said, “after that thing with that lousy hotel detective—that dirty—”
“Where did you get the dope on Roberts?”
“Some girl told me. She went around with him when he first got in town, about three months ago. He tried to pull the same thing on her he did on me—you know.” She touched herself down where the scar was. “But she got pretty sore about it. She was even going to call the cops. So Lou ducked out and she said that’s when he went up in the mountains, to this hotel. There was an ad in the paper. She didn’t know where he was at first, though. Then she ran into him one day and he told her. They kind of patched it up about the—cutting thing. She never did tell the cops.”
There was slush on the quiet streets and it was freezing gradually. He drove carefully, pulled up opposite the hotel entrance. Irene sat toying with the door handle.
“You want to come up for a while, honey?”
“Not tonight.”
“Well, what’re you going to do? You going to see Lou?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe I’ll give him a phone call, see if he’s interested in this deal.”
“About our deal—for Las Vegas—”
“After I talk to him,” he said. “I’ll be in touch with you.”
“Well, where are you going to stay? Like tonight I mean?”
“I’ll check in somewhere. I have to think over some things. Mr. Fenelon wants me to go to work at his other joint.”
“You going to?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Don’t you want to go to Las Vegas with me?”
“Maybe. We’ll see.”
“Joe, tell me the truth. You got another girl? Are you shacked up with somebody?”
“No.”
“Honest?”
“Honest. Come on now, run along and get your sleep. I’ll call you.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Or the next day. For sure. Now beat it.”
“All right, Joe. You be careful.” She opened the door and got out, her feet cautious on the slippery walk. She leaned down to look in at him. “Don’t stand me up, Joe.”
“I won’t stand you up.”
“So long, honey.”
He nodded as she slammed the door. He watched her across the street and into the hotel, then pulled away.
* * * *
On a through highway at the edge of the city, he found a gas station open. While he was having the car serviced, he got out a map and studied it. Laurel Flats was a tiny dot about sixty miles to the southwest. There was one sizeable town, from which the road to Laurel Flats angled away from the main highway.
“How are the roads?” he asked the attendant.
“They’re clear, the last I heard, as far as Boulder.”
Mickey thanked him and paid for the gas.
“Going skiing?” the attendant asked.
“Not this trip.”
“Well, take it easy.”
He drove southwest on dry, clear roads. There was no traffic aside from an occasional truck. There was some snow banked along the sides of the road and he slowed down for depressions where moisture had gathered and frozen. After an hour, he pulled in at a motel with a lighted sign. It took a few minutes to rouse the manager, with whom he left a call for six o’clock. He took a hot bath, shaved and went to bed for two hours. He slept restlessly off and on, but when the call came, he was wide awake and waiting.
At seven o’clock he had breakfast in a roadside cafe outside of Boulder. It was a cold, quiet Sunday morning. The sky was clear overhead, but clouds were massed over the mountains rising beyond the town.
A few miles beyond Boulder, a road twisted up into the mountains and ended a short distance beyond Laurel Flats. On the map, it appeared to be a fifteen-to-twenty-mile climb. Four miles beyond where he sat at the moment, the map showed a crossroad from the highway over to the main road out of Boulder northwest. He continued along the highway, watching for the crossroad. It turned out to be a narrow, country road with some snow banked along the shoulders and spread white but shallow over the flat fields on both sides. It had looked level when he entered it, but after a while he realized he was climbing steadily, though gradually. After a few miles, the once flat fields changed to low, rolling hills. There was snow on the road now, but it was hard-packed and rutted and the car rode it safely. Overhead and behind him, the clouds were high and soft and a thin sunlight warmed the car at first. Then as he approached the inner highway that wound along the base of the high western plateau, it grew darker, colder.
The canyon road was wide and looked clear as he started the climb, but he had no idea what it would be like farther up. He made good time at first. There were patches of snow, but on the lower, gentler grade, he rolled over them easily. It was clear and fast for half a dozen miles; then the road narrowed, the grade steepened and he could feel the small car laboring in the climb. There was more snow, and now and then he lost traction and would have to slow down and shift to low gear to keep from skidding off the edge.
The road dropped off abruptly on his left. Across the canyon, at more and more frequent intervals
as he climbed, he could see the half-obscured entrances to long-abandoned mine shafts dug into the mountainside. Against the background of the erratically drifted snow, they were incomplete squares of black timbers framing the blacker holes. From one, near the bottom of the canyon, narrow-gauge tracks curved out of the shaft and a couple of snow-laced ore cars stood empty and derelict. Farther on, in a deep, man-made cut, a huge mine shed reared, rusted and peppered with jagged holes in the iron sheeting that formed its walls. He passed an isolated frame building perched on a ledge above the road, a long-unused schoolhouse.
As the road neared the summit of the climb, it broadened again and the grade leveled off. The rock-strewn cliffs gave way to rolling, open meadows with clumps of trees here and there. The snow had a deceptively leveling effect. Underneath, he felt, the terrain would be rugged and tortuous.
The road straightened and he drove half a mile to its end, where it formed a junction with a crossroad that stretched away in both directions over the high plateau. There was a marker, half-buried in snow. He got out to brush it clear. The sign read: “LAUREL FLATS—2½ MILES” He glanced up the road and it was clear as far as he could see. A quarter of a mile ahead, it rose sharply, then dipped into a densely wooded area.
He swung into the road toward the wood plot. He found it dense on both sides, except for clearings at intervals where cabins of stone, logs or pine boards stood among the trees. Some of the cabins had names on markers beside their drives. All were tightly shuttered and untenanted. Snow was banked around them and lay heavily on their roofs.
He traveled about a mile and a half before the woods thinned out and he could see meadows beyond. He passed a high, wooden structure with a loading platform and a sign reading: “ICE HOUSE—LAUREL FLATS.” A broad driveway turned into it, curving to come parallel to the loading ramp. Another drive branched from it to circle the building. The drives had been used recently.
Rather suddenly, he broke into cleared land and found himself in a broad, shallow valley, sparsely wooded with aspen and pine. There were more cabins dotting the landscape, accessible by narrow roads in a random network. Just ahead he saw a junction where a road turned off and ran in a straight line across the valley toward more woods a mile or so away. On a large marker at the junction were the words: “LAUREL FLATS,” and below, over a long arrow pointing down the road to his left, “PEABODY HOTEL.”
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